Standard-soiled material and method of preparing same



April 1931- F. H. GUERNSEY ET AL 1,802,052

STANDARD SOILED MATERIAL AND METHOD OF PREPARING SAME Fild Jan. 28, 1928 Patented Apr. 21, 1931 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE- FAY H. GUERNSEY, OF LOCKPORT, AND LLOYD T. HOWELLS, OF BUFFALO, NEW

YORK,

ASSIGNORS TO THE ELECTRIC SMELTmG 8t; ALUMINUM CO. INC., OF LOCKPORT, NEW

- YORK STANDARD-$011131) MATERIAL AND METHOD OF PREPARING- Application filed January 28, 1928. Serial No. 250,329.

of a cleansing operation, and to methods of preparing such cloths or articles The ob ects of this invention are to provide an artificially soiled cloth or article of a kind which will serve as a standard in the measure- 10 ment or comparison of theefliciency of various detergent compositions or other cleansing media, or of washing processes or apparatus; also to provide a soiled article of this kind in which the soiling composition is applied thereto in such a way as to leave a number of portions of the article unsoiled in such a manner that any traces of the soiling composition remaining on the article after washing the same will be readily visible by contrast with the unsoiled portions of the article also to provide a standard soiled article which can be easily and inexpensively produced and by means of which the efliciency of detergents, washing processes or ap aratus can be determined without the use 0 special apparatus or chemical analysis to determine the efiiciency of the composition, process or apparatus employed; also to provide a method of preparing standard soiled articles of this kind in which the soiling composition-is uniformly ap lied to the articles also to improve articles 0 this kind and methods of making ifzihe1 same in other respects hereinafter speci- Laboratory methods of determining detergent efliciency are largely based upon measurements of interfacial tension lowering, deflocculation of various inert solids and liquids, foaming values, etc., but we have early reco ized that the mechanism of cleansing is base upon at least two distinct steps, name-- do not in any way measure the eifectiveness of the detergent system from the standpoint of separating the soil from the surface to becleansed. Furthermore, this phase of the cleansing process is regarded as of the greatest importance since the soil must be separated from the surface before it may be deflocculated, and furthermore, any unseparat- 2d soil later appears as stains or discolora- In textile cleansing, attempts have been made to account for these factors by saturating a piece of cloth or yarn with a soiling mixture, by immersion in a solution of the soiling mixture in a volatile solvent, the latter being later evaporated from the fiber leaving the soiling ingredients deposited in the fiber. The difficulties of such methods are well known to workers who have pursued investigations of this nature. It is next to impossible to produce uniformly soiled goods because of difiiculties in deflocculation of carbon black and other soiling agents in volatile solvents and unless extreme care and speed in drying are carried out the solvent will tend to flow into loops in the cloth and carry greater portions of the more soluble agents into such. areas. Also it is next to impossible to prepare any quantity of such cloth for extensive work and as it is not reproducible by others for collaborative work it is of no value as a standard.

Aside from the dificultie's of preparation of such cloth, washing tests upon it involve the problem of measuring the degree of whiteness obtained and this obviously is very involved and beyond the scope of facilities available to many persons, such for example, as laundry men, interested in comparative detergency tests under conditions existing in their respective industrial plants.

In accordance with our invention any desired cloth, textile material, or other article may be employed, and a suitable soiling composition may be' applied thereto in such a manner as to form a-pattern or design of such a nature that many portions of the cloth or textile material remain uncovered by the soiling composition, so that the soiled and unsoiled portions of the textilematerial are x position upon the material.

.9 pieces of cloth discharged from the printcloth having the soiling composition thereon in the form of bars or stripes B. These stripes are s aced apart, leaving unprinted portions C o the cloth.

The soiling composition itself does not form a part of this invention and may be varied, as desired. For example, a combination of ingredients of the soiling composition maybe selected so as to be representative of the character of a certain soil which is to be investigated, or a combination of ingredients 25 may be selected only for their known resistance to cleansing and for their varied propertles. By way of example, the composition may include the following ingredients: P

' arts Wheat starch 57 Gum tragacanth 3 Tallow 11 Mineral oil 11 Carbon black 17 Water suflicient to produce a creamy consistency.

Since the amount of washing or other cleansing operation necessary in order to remove the soiling composition from a sample of cloth or other material depends to some extent upon the amount of quantity of soiling com osition which has been placed upon the clot or other material, it is desirable to secure a uniform deposit of the soiling com-, This may be effected 113g mechanical means in different ways. e vcomposition may be sprayed upon the goods or the composition may be transferred to the goods by means of rubber stamps. Preferably, however, the soiling composition is applied to the articles b means of a printing machine, such as a stand ard textile printing machine in which a soilmgi composition is applied to the fprinting cg nder or late and in turn trans erred to t e on a printing machine of this Inn is used a very uniform distribution of the soiIin composition 11 on the cloth or other artic e's is effected. n this manner all machine will have the same amount of 3%.

g composition printed thereon. The

moisture in the soiling composition is quick-.

ly evaporated, leaving a deposit of the soilmg mixture on the goods, which deposit has of the soiling com osition are readily resharp edges contrasting with the unsoiled portions of the goods.

This method of preparing a standard soiled cloth or article produces an article which is uniformly soiled and which is readily reproducible, so that all such soiled articles, whether roduced in one place or in another, and y one person or another will beuniform and will require the same amount of time for washing or removing the soiling composition therefrom with a given detergent, process or a paratus. The article thus produced is loca y impregnated with the standard soiling composition, the

color of which contrasts with the unsoiled portions of the article. When such an article is washed or subjected to a cleansing process, the progress of soil removal is easily observed by the vanishing of the design or pattern on the article when compared with the unsoiled portions of the article. When all traces of the design or pattern and the outlines thereof have disappeared, the cloth or article may be considered clean, and the number of treatments required for entirely removing the soiling composition may be ac cepted as an index of the detergent value of the detergent system under investigation or of the effectiveness of the system or apparatus employed. No instrumentalities for measuring the whiteness of the washed articles need be employed since by applying readily determine the value or efliciency of a detergent composition, of a washing machine, or of any other cleansing o ration. The real test of detergency lies in t e wer of removing the last trace of the soi In the use of our improved soiled articles, the greatest amount of soil or the upper layers moved in the first ew treatments or washings of the soiled cloth, but the removal of the tightly adsorbed soil, closestto the fiber of the article reguires greater activity on the part of the etergent system or apparatus. I

Claims 1. A' standard soiled cloth for use in testin the effectiveness of cleansing operations, said cloth having a definite quantity of a soiling composition including a pluralit of ingredients and removable from the clot by a cleansing operation said composition bein printed on the cloth to form a pattern an caving portions of the cloth uncovered at 1 frequent intervals between printed portions, said unsoiled portions by contrast enabling remaining slight traces of soiling composition to be readily detected by sight.

2. A standard soiled cloth for use in testing the effectiveness of cleansing operations, said 'cloth having a definite quantity of a soiling composition removable from the cloth by a cleansing operation printed thereon to form a pattern and leavin portions of the cloth uncovered at frequent intervals between printed portions, said soiling composition including superficial portions which are readily removable by a cleansing opera- 5 tion and other portions which are intimately associated with the fibers of the cloth and are removed with greater difliculty.

3. A standard soiled article for use in testing the effectiveness of cleansing operations,

said article having a standard soiling composition removable from the article by a cleansing operation, uniformly applied'to portions only of a face of the article by printing at intervals sufficiently small to 2 produce a uniform deposit of soiling composition on the printed portions of the surface, the unprinted portions of the articles serving as standards of comparison between soiled and unsoiled portions of the article so after washing and ensuring uniform application of the composition to the printed portions.

FAY H. GUERNSEY. LLOYD T. HOWELLS. 

